<p>Looks like UT has 40k undergrads. So, the diff is an increase 600 students.</p>
<p>Are you saying, Hispanics at UT, at half their presence in the state pop, is sufficient? Or that there are not enough to go around, to be better represented in those 24-student or lower classes?</p>
<p>Anyone thinking about the consequences of the SCOTUS decision on UT enrollment? A relative handful of URMs are accepted holistically now. Will those slots go to ORMs if SCOTUS sides with Fisher? Very unlikely. It’s hard to get a quorum for “I want URMs to be EVEN MORE underrepresented.” (Of course I’ve been wrong about this SCOTUS before. Who’d have guessed the Court would find a Constitutional basis to award Free Speech Rights to mouthless abstractions?)</p>
<p>"Is that why they give preference to legacies? Because the all-wise AO’s ‘know what the school wants and likes, what constitutes ‘worthy’ and will let a kid fit and thrive, add to the community.’ "</p>
<p>I agree. Policy decisions are way to important to let Legislatures and Universities make them. I suggest we outsource the whole MESS to Bangalore and give the subcontractors there a free hand in making accept/deny decisions. (Probably save some money too!)</p>
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<p>Some students in the Black Student Alliance at Duke disagreed:</p>
<p>[Unpublished</a> study draws ire from minorities | The Chronicle](<a href=“http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2012/01/17/unpublished-study-draws-ire-minorities]Unpublished”>http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2012/01/17/unpublished-study-draws-ire-minorities)</p>
<p>Let’s recap Fisher:</p>
<p>1)Big money fundraising and salaries started the litigation.
2)After three years of trying, Fisher was the best candidate that the conservatives could come up with.
3)Fisher lost at the state and district level
4)For some reason, SCOTUS heard the case?
5)The facts allege that there were 148 minorities who had better stats than Fisher, but who did not get in.
6)The facts allege that there were 47 students with worse stats than Fisher who did get in. But 42/47 are white.
7)If Fisher wins, I suspect not much will change, perhaps Asians will gain a few seats. Whites will not likely gain anything. Hispanics will lose very little. Possibly blacks a few seats. (I’m not sure about that).
8)In the end, Fisher was born out of greed. It is not what people think. Then again politics rarely is.</p>
<p>@soso,
Are you advocating for the elimination of appeals in our judicial system?</p>
<p>The plaintive Oliver Brown lost at the state and district level, too. Thank goodness he was persistent.</p>
<p>“greedy” right wing plots aside…</p>
<p>Fisher’s case is the following:</p>
<p>[What</a> You Need to Know About ‘Fisher v. Texas’ - Legal - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“What You Need to Know About ‘Fisher v. Texas’”>What You Need to Know About ‘Fisher v. Texas’)</p>
<p>"that the University of Texas violated the limits on race-conscious admissions policies set forth by the Supreme Court when it last considered them, in 2003. In Grutter v. Bollinger, which involved the policies of the University of Michigan law school, the Supreme Court held that colleges seeking to promote diversity must give “serious, good-faith consideration” to race-neutral alternatives to affirmative-action preferences.</p>
<p>Ms. Fisher’s lawsuit argues that Texas’ “Top 10 Percent Plan” has produced sufficient levels of diversity on the Austin campus and that the university has no need to give extra consideration to applicants based on race."</p>
<p>With that in mind, lets take into account how Justice Kennedy felt about Grutter (since he’s the likely swing vote).</p>
<p>"Justice Kennedy has accepted the idea that narrowly tailored race-conscious admissions policies provide educational benefits that serve a government interest. But he rejected the specific policy at issue in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case, saying the University of Michigan’s law school gave too much weight to race in admission decisions and used “numerical goals indistinguishable from quotas.”</p>
<p>I don’t think SCOTUS will over-turn Grutter (as Kennedy would need to be the 5th vote), but they will likely say UT went too far, and have them remove race consideration from holistic admission. Of course, UT can still use SES and other factors, so this may mean a slight change in the number of high SES URMs that get admitted. </p>
<p>In that I agree with Sosa, not much will change.</p>
<p>If Fisher prevails, the big impact will be felt outside of Texas. UT admits only a quarter of its class via the holistic plan, while other selective colleges admit 100% of their class that way.</p>
<p>Who gets to decide what “sufficient levels of diversity” are?</p>
<p>Why does anyone even have to decide? Let the students apply, and let the chips fall where they may. That’s what California does.</p>
<p>Chances are that if Fisher prevails, even the next “Fisher” will not gain admittance.</p>
<p>Regarding Kennedy, reaching a conclusion that UT established a system of QUOTAs is a huge hurdle. The evidence that minorities fared poorly in the holistic process undermines the idea that UT was casting a wide net to reach a minimum quota. For all intents and purposes, if there were a quota, UT could NOT meet it. The school cannot offer sufficient financial and social incentives to Blacks and Hispanics to convince them that Austin is THE place for them. </p>
<p>If Fisher prevails, UT could simply work harder on managing it’s URM yield. Plenty could be done by offering support programs, releasing the better dorms to special groups, increasing financial aid according to geographical areas, and other mechanisms that do NOT involve admissions.</p>
<p>“If Fisher prevails, UT could simply work harder on managing it’s URM yield.”</p>
<p>… and then all of us can wait for the next legal shoe to drop: “Ms. Lily White sued the University of Texas today, claiming the university is using race as an ‘in-kind’ admissions preference in violation of the Supreme Court’s Fisher v. UT decision. The basis of her claim is that the proportion of URMs hasn’t changed since Fisher v., and therefore the university MUST still be giving preference.”</p>
<p>6-2 decision against Fisher based on a lack of standing (no cognizable legal injury because she cannot show any discrimination impacted her application, with Alito writing the majority decision and Scalia and Thomas dissenting.</p>
<p>NewHope, the world of post admissions is quite different from pre admissions. Access to honors dorms, well-regarded dorms, specific support groups, scholarships, etc, is not covered by this or other lawsuits. The biggest bang could come from scholarships and housing. Dedicated scholarships already exist at UT, including a number of private scholarships. I am not sure how popular a lawsuit about preferred status on housing would be if the targets were low SES and URM students. What if UT dedicated the exact percentage of its admissions to each dorm? They admit xx percent of Latinos and reserve xx percent in the best dorms. Who could complain?</p>
<p>“The basis of her claim is that the proportion of URMs hasn’t changed since Fisher v., and therefore the university MUST still be giving preference.” "</p>
<p>UT can get the ratio of URMs simply by offering financial incentives to already qualified URMs under the 7-8% rule. </p>
<p>The issue has NEVER been finding enough who are qualified, but always finding enough who WANT TO enroll. If the goal is to have URMs with higher SES, then they are trying to get income rather than spend money to attract, a huge difference in the money.</p>
<p>500 kids who can pay equals 5 Million in income.</p>
<p>500 kids who need be given aid equals 10 million in expense (they need to absorb tuition and cover room and board).</p>
<p>So there is a difference of 15 million in budget.</p>
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<p>Charging people more because they are white or Asian would not go over well. Privately funded scholarships are one thing, but this would not work with state money or general university funds.</p>
<p>Beliasky - The schools can disguise it anyway they want if they want to fund some and charge some. </p>
<p>They can call it merit, need, athletic or whatever but essentially the fee structure at any school varies from 0 to full pay. So full pay students paying full fee does not make it more.</p>
<p>Pay close attention to the following reports:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/SB_175_Report_for_2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/SB_175_Report_for_2012.pdf</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/SB_175_Report_for_2011.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/SB_175_Report_for_2011.pdf</a></p>
<p>Evaluate how many students are admitted and enroll (under both programs) from various schools in Texas, and check the racial and SES distributions. For Texans familiar with the various HS, check the 2011 report that lists every school that was a feeder. A nice exercise is to compare Highland Park in Dallas with schools in El Paso, Victoria, Lubbock, Midland, or Edinburgh. </p>
<p>The conclusion is that the Fisher case really has nothing to do with a problem in Texas!</p>
<p>xiggi - I wasn’t challenging your assertion. Rather … as #677 nicely illustrates … when it comes to anything AA-related, something doesn’t have to unreasonable, unfair or discriminatory for some people to believe that it is. One can only smile at claims that a Fisher “win” will free up a large number of extra slots for ORMs. If that doesn’t come to pass (as it likely won’t), there will surely be yet another lawsuit to “fix” the UT admissions process.</p>